Where The Interactive Books Are,
A conversation with Markian Moyes about Loose Strands and what’s going on in the market of book apps for tweens.
By Maura Malfatto Elia, April 28, 2015
What do you think a graduate in Computer Science and English can do? Win the 2014 award for the best Book App at the Digital World Conference; be named to the shortlist at the Bologna Book Fair; and become one of the few real innovators in the market of children’s book apps. Markian Moyes, from the Canadian-based Darned Sock Productions, is the author and coder of Loose Strands, a rare example of a digital book for older children, in an over-crowded landscape of picture-book apps.
Q. Mark, tell me something about your background and how you got there.
I went to the University of Toronto and I did a major in English and a major in Computer Science. So, half of my time had been spent doing code-based stuff. You know, it’s been very difficult to find interesting jobs that allowed me to use both skills. When I got out of the university, I was like: “Hello world, what do you have for me?” And they said: “How would you like to write manuals?” And that’s terrible. I did that for a couple of years but I didn’t enjoy it at all. So, after having worked on the editorial side, the writing side of the magazine industry, for some magazines, and working on some websites for a bunch of different clients, I had this idea for a book that could be more interactive. I was seeing how children responded to the IPad, and they really respond very well!
Q. Can you explain the difference between books apps, web apps and fixed layout epubs? And why did you choose book apps for Loose Strands?
Sure! I am simplifying it a little bit. In e-books, epubs have a fixed layout. Practically, all things you read through an e-book reader, on a Kindle, or through IBooks. Book apps allow you to do more programming. So technically e-books would allow you to create links, add sounds and animations but you can’t play very much. You can do a very traditional adventure, like “if you want to do this, click here and go to page 20,” for example. We preferred book apps because there is much more programming, so you can make choices, and you can see pages disappear. All of that requires a lot of programming. I prefer book apps to web apps as if you are running it on a browser it just doesn’t perform as well. So with all the animations we have, they would be slow, sloppy and chunky. In brief, the difference between a book app and a web app, is in the performance.
Q. So, your choice for a book app was just to have more possibilities for you to enrich the text with graphics, sounds?
Well, yeah, but it’s more about actually having a logic in the narrative that could change. At the very end of Loose Strands there is a climactic scene where the interface actually becomes a part of the story and you say: “Oh, I see why these pages are disappearing!”
Q. Augmented reality is very appealing and engaging but… it is not taking off. What is your comment about it?
I am actually a bit surprised that Google Glass did not take off a little bit better. My comment on augmented reality in general is that I could not personally imagine me walking in the city with my IPad in front of my face. It would feel like an awkward interaction with the world! I think it would be embarrassing. I know people use augmented reality for books as well, and some of those things look really cool. But again, as ridiculous as it sounds, I have always loved books, I have grown up with books. People always used to laugh at me because when I was at a restaurant, or at a bar, whenever, I had a book with me. To me, part of the experience of reading, or playing with toys, is touching something. Even with Loose Strands. It was a subtle choice, as we could have implemented a “go to the next page button,” but to me it was very important to do it when you drag, when you flip it, interacting with the page. So yes, I think augmented reality apps are pretty cool, but I haven’t seen any really awesome examples.
Q. In children’s books the visual part is very important. With the new technology, it seems that a good deal of experimentation is happening here. How is this market changing?
There is something very interesting going on here. First of all, I think you are right. This is what people see immediately. Young children just love tapping screens and interacting with things. Once someone told me that their son got very angry as he was trying to tap the tv screen and got upset when he saw it was not doing anything! But one thing we have seen in the last three-four years is that there has been a lot of energy into book apps for younger children and apps in general. A lot of people were excited about it and saw that app stores were a great market. But the general consensus is that it’s still a struggle to make a huge amount of money off of book apps!
Q. We see many picture books apps but your product is different.
There is a huge number of picture-book apps but we noticed that, once kids get to a certain age, there is not much other than games on the IPad. So, we started to work on something that we would be interested in working on, but also that kids would eventually be interested in. I mean, it’s almost a shame that for all these kids who are growing up with books, even picture books on the IPad, when they get eight-nine years old, there is nothing for them. The thing that I found a little bit surprising is that when we launched Loose Strand we were one of the first, and two and a half years later, we are still one of the first. There are really not many things, word-based, for kids of that age.
Q. What is the reason behind that?
Well, because of a couple of different reasons. If you are doing something that long, it takes a long time to put together another one. But also, you have to get creative on how you do your interactivity. Because with the picture books it is all touching and moving things, and interacting with things in different ways. Once you get to a chapter-book format, which is longer, all the touching and moving is actually distracting you from the story. So, you have to figure out ways to interact with the story, with the words, without distracting the reader. It is difficult.
Q. How does the interactive medium impact the storytelling?
A couple of different things. The whole story just came from asking how we could have choices in a story and still have a satisfying ending. I had read Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid, and I enjoyed them. But I was always a little bit unsatisfied when you got to the end as I didn’t know if it was the real end. Also, I needed a character who was trapped, that he didn’t have a lot of choices because if you give people choices all the time, it is very difficult to construct a narrative. You have to limit people’s choices because otherwise it is just unmanageable.
Q. What was the timeline, from the idea to the launch of Loose Strands?
It was launched in spring 2014, and it took three years in total. There was a certain amount of programming at the beginning, just as proof of concept, to make sure that everything was going to work. Very early on, I realized that I had to create something that allowed me to write in the way I wanted to write it. I had to create a word processor that allowed me to write on a grid so that there were not too many strands going on at once. And yes, Canada is a great place because they are really pushing this interactive business space. We found a business development fund, and not an art fund, and we had to do a business case for why this project would be successful. We would have not been able to hire Jeff Frizzell, who did the amazing illustrations, three animators, two editors who had worked in children’s industry before, and the testers. There was a total of 12 people involved.
Q. Your book has been very well-received critically and Digital Storytime says that Loose Strands “sets the golden standards for non-linear and interactive story telling.” What is the response of readers and their most common comment?
I have read comments in the app stores and other places. Most of the comments have been really good. But it is impossible to write a book that everybody likes. Generally, we had a really good response. It’s not the typical book where kids find a magical sword and dragon, it is not that kind of story. That’s the reason why there are two versions of Loose Strands: in the free version (unlockable) you can read the first chapter, to see if you like it. You know, there are people who read the first chapter and say: “This is not for me.” But one thing that keeps coming up again and again is that readers (adults too, but especially kids) really want to be able to go back and see what happens when they make the other choice. You can’t do that in Loose Strands because those pages disappear. (Well, you can, but only if you save before you make a choice and reload.) That was a deliberate decision we made because the disappearing pages reinforce the theme of regret. It’s kind of what the story is about.
Q. Which platform do you use to engage your readers, tweens nine-twelve years old?
We’ve found it difficult to access kids of that age on social media. We are on Twitter. We find that when we use it, we are interacting with the book apps community and moms. Facebook seems to be a little bit better but technically, it’s for an older audience. We have a YouTube channel, where we have a few things going on, and I think we are going to explore this.
Q. What is your comment on the digital market of book apps for tweens?
The fact that the Bologna Book Fair, which is the largest children’s book fair in the world, covers the digital category is amazing. There are a very few places that do that. It is really exciting, I am really glad that it exists. There are only four or five, or maybe three, big prizes that you can get for digital children’s apps. In fact, one of the things that is kind of frightening, is that the industry has grown so big, and there is less coverage right now for book apps. For example, Kirkus Reviews, one of the biggest American book reviewers, which has been covering this category for two/three years, does not cover it anymore. It’s a really interesting thing. I think that a lot of people came in the industry and noticed so many children’s book apps in the app stores and it is a sort of difficult to find good ones. But, having said that, there hasn’t been a lot of growth in things that go beyond the tap and the really innovating stuff is not coming out. What I find really interesting is what Inkle Studios is doing. One of their first projects was a collaboration with a UK publisher: Profile books. It was an interactive version of Frankenstein where users can make choices. But Inkle is an example an example of how a lot of app publishers, who had been working on interactive books apps, are moving towards more ‘game-like’ experiences. Inkle’s most successful project to date, released last year, is 80 Days, a 500-word retelling of Jules Vernes’ Around the World in 80 Days. It has “choose-your-own-adventure” aspects, but also requires players to manage money and time, and collect inventory as they navigate the globe. It’s kind of like a perfect blending of a board game and novel/text-adventure. Time Magazine named it their game of the year. What’s interesting is that Inkle didn’t put it in the “books” category on the app store: they’re marketing it as a game! This is one of the struggles we are facing. We were surprised how long it took for sales to grow to the level they’re at now. But we realized that if people want something to read, they do not look in the app stores. And it is so hard to get people to the app stores if they want something to read! So it’s just that. If it is something word based and you call it a game, all of a sudden people say: “Oh yea, this is great!”
Q. Finally, what is your comment on audio books, a fast growing market in digital publishing?
It is an interesting question. I am actually a big fan of the podcast, and audio journalism, and I think there are really interesting things you can do with audio. I don’t think we are going to do an audio book for Loose Strands, for the same sort of reason why we do not have a translation for it: with its 75,000 words, it would be too expensive. But we might start with a smaller project.
(Images with permission of the author granted)
